by Tom Abrahams
Marcus lowered his rifle and offered a smile. He tried to smile. He wasn’t sure if it was actually a smile or more of a constipated grimace. “Norma.”
“Marcus?”
He offered a hand. She looked at it before taking it in hers.
“Good lord,” she said. “You’re old.”
Marcus chuckled. “And you haven’t changed a bit.”
“Liar,” she said.
“Maybe.”
“Where’s Lou? David?” Dallas interjected. “What’s with the horses?”
Norma lowered her gaze to the ground and sighed.
“What happened?” Dallas asked, tears forming in his eyes. “Where are they?”
“They’re not here, Dallas. The Pop Guard came and—”
“They took her?” The pain in Dallas’s voice was heartbreaking.
Marcus winced at it. His grip tightened around the rifle he held at his side. His eyes searched the property beyond Dallas and toward the lake and the Appaloosas.
“They didn’t take her,” Marcus said. “She left.”
Norma and Dallas gaped at Marcus. Dallas’s eyes darted between the two of them before settling on Norma.
“That’s right,” said Norma. “But how did you know?”
Marcus jutted his chin toward the horses. “The Appaloosas. They’re not yours. If the Pop Guard had taken Lou, they wouldn’t have left them behind. My guess is you stopped them, but you’re afraid they’re coming back.”
Both of them looked at him, dumfounded. Norma nodded slowly.
“I’m old,” said Marcus, “but not stupid.”
Dallas glanced at the horses. “Where did she go?”
“Where’s Rudy?” asked Marcus.
“Come with me,” Norma said. “Let’s get inside and I’ll tell you everything.”
She set off toward the main house, followed by the two men. Marcus inhaled slowly as his joints creaked. The smell of dust and ozone was comforting. It was like walking into his home after having been away, smells that were at once familiar and foreign.
“Lou and David are okay,” she said. “I know where they’re headed. You can meet them there. So don’t worry, Dallas.”
“What about Rudy?” asked Marcus.
“He’s hurt. It was a tough fight when they showed up.”
Marcus noticed Norma’s gait had changed. It was slower, uneven, and she favored her right side now. While she still carried the confidence of a woman who’d survived more than most and come out the other side stronger than she’d been before, there was something aged in the way she moved, a hitch, a caution. He knew his own swagger was less Texan than it had been.
Norma stepped onto the porch and paused, glancing at Marcus. “He’ll be so happy to see you,” she said. “He missed you.”
“Me too,” said Marcus.
Norma raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
It was judgmental. Questioning. Doubting.
Marcus didn’t blame her. He stepped onto the porch. A dark smear of blood stained the deck. He walked around it and into the house.
Norma led them straight through the house toward the kitchen. More bloodstains marked the floors and walls. It looked like a house of horrors. He could smell the death.
“They got in the house?” Marcus asked when they reached the kitchen. He laid his rifle on the counter without asking permission.
Norma leaned against the sink. She turned on the water and it trickled from the faucet. “Well’s running dry,” she said, running her hands under the pitiful stream. She ignored his question, rubbing the dirt from her fingernails.
“Where did Lou go?” asked Dallas. “She’s okay? When did she leave?”
“She’s headed toward Fort Worth,” said Norma. “The railroad has a contact there.”
“Fort Worth?” Dallas’s voice rose an octave. Or three. “That’s tribal territory. Why would she go there? Why wouldn’t she wait here? Or go somewhere less…tribal?”
Norma turned off the water and shook the water from her hands, then wiped them on the front of her jeans. “She couldn’t stay here, Dallas,” she said flatly. “You know that. Once the guard came, the chance was too great they’d show up again. Especially after what we did to them. I didn’t say she was going to Fort Worth. I said toward it. She’ll steer clear of the tribes.”
Her eyes flitted to the hallway and then to Marcus. Clearing her throat, she moved to the counter where Marcus had put his rifle. Hers was next to it. Dallas still held his in both hands.
“I couldn’t be sure you’d make it back,” she said. “And if you did, I had no way of knowing if you’d have Marcus with you. It was better to send her to get help, start the journey without you. You can catch up. She’s only got a day’s head start. With that truck you’ve got, you’ll close the gap quickly. Where did you get that truck?”
“Did she have the baby?” asked Dallas.
“A generous benefactor gave us the truck,” said Marcus.
“You stole it?” Norma asked.
“Not really.”
“No on the baby,” Norma said to Dallas. “Not when she left.”
“What happened here?” Marcus asked.
The conversation was frenetic. All three of them had questions that were connected but had nothing to do with one another. It was like two children trying to share the highlights of their day with a parent, simultaneously providing information while asking for it. Nobody finished a sentence or a thought, because all of their minds were racing toward whatever it was that interested them.
Marcus wasn’t sure who the children were, but he was pretty sure Dallas wasn’t the adult. He was fidgety, unable to stand still. He tugged at his hair, the exasperation on his face evident.
Norma ran her fingers along the creases framing her cheeks that ran from the edges of her nose to the outsides of her lips. Her eyes misted and tears pooled in their corners. When she lowered her hands and folded her arms across her chest, she appeared more worn than she had a few minutes earlier. She was looking through the men even as her gaze settled on them. Her silence, and her emotion, calmed the room.
“The Pop Guard showed up. We saw them coming,” said Norma. “We got Lou and David into the barn. Rudy and I were on the porch. Everything was fine. Tense but fine. Then they searched the house and found a wooden toy.”
“The horse?” asked Dallas.
Norma nodded, her chin quivering.
“What does that matter?” asked Marcus. “People can have toys. They can have one child. Why would that—”
“They knew we lied to them,” said Norma. “Everything exploded.”
“Why didn’t you take them out before they could get too close?” Marcus asked. “Pick them off on horseback one by one?”
Norma’s eyes darkened. Her jaw clenched, the muscles flexing as she glared.
Marcus immediately regretted having questioned their tactics. He started to apologize when Norma turned her back on him. She started out of the kitchen toward the hallway and called after him, “I have to check on Rudy. You can say hello if you want.”
Dallas was the first out of the room, following Norma closely up the stairs. He was asking her about Lou and David. She answered him in hushed tones Marcus couldn’t hear.
“Great,” Marcus grumbled. He moved toward the hallway, his knee aching, his ankles stiff. He twisted his neck to one side and then the other. It cracked and felt good.
Despite the dim lighting in the hallway and the shadows that cast odd shapes onto the walls and floor, Marcus saw more bloodstains. Blotches of dried, dark liquid leached across the floor. His boots were sticky with it as he reached the stairs.
He ascended the steps one at a time, each push burning his knees. The smell of dust was thicker on the second floor. It was warmer too. The air was dense, almost stale.
The boards creaked under his weight, and he followed the low drone of conversation toward the end of the hall to the right. The door was open, and flickering candlelight spilled
into the hall.
Marcus moved to the doorway and stood at the threshold. Norma sat on the edge of the bed, her feet planted on the floor. She was wringing a rag free of excess water, the drippings clinking against the metal bowl on the bedside table.
Dallas stood back, watching Norma. Then she turned and looked at him. Her eyes washed over him with a mixture of what Marcus recognized as disgust and disappointment.
Those two feelings were cousins often joined at the hip. Marcus knew them well. He’d gotten to know them in the two decades since the Scourge took his wife and his son.
When Norma moved, Rudy appeared behind her. His head was propped on a trio of saggy pillows, their white cases stained yellow from sweat and pink from blood.
His eyes were closed. His skin sallow, almost translucent, he appeared weak and racked with exhaustion. But as Marcus stepped closer, Rudy somehow looked as he had years ago. Despite the wounds, he looked young. Time hadn’t aged him as it had others.
A floorboard creaked, drawing Rudy’s attention. His eyes opened, if only a little, and he turned his head toward Marcus.
“Marcus?” he asked. “You’re here? Dallas told me you came. I said I wouldn’t buy it unless I saw you standing in front of me. And I’ll be, you’re in front of me.”
“Seeing is believing,” said Marcus, unsure of what to say at first. He exchanged a quick glance with Norma and then focused on Rudy and smiled.
“Damn, you’re old,” said Rudy. His voice was raspy but strong enough. “I know we all age, but damn, Marcus. It’s like the years took you out back and put a whooping on you. Like you looked at Methuselah and said, ‘Hey, brother, hold my beer.’ It’s as though—”
Marcus waved his hands in surrender. “I get it, I get it,” he said, still smiling.
Rudy laughed until he coughed.
“Take it easy,” Norma warned him and blotted the damp rag on his forehead. She looked again at Marcus. “He’s had a fever on and off. I’m trying to keep it at bay.”
“You have antibiotics?”
“Yes. They’re old,” she said. “Not sure how effective they are.”
“I’ve got some honey out in my pack,” Marcus said. “I can give you some to put on his wounds. It can’t hurt. It’s not medical grade, but it’s from my bees, so…”
“Your bees?” asked Rudy. “You have bees?”
Marcus nodded. “I do. They keep me company.”
Marcus regretted his words the moment he said them. Judging from the six eyes drilling into him and the shift in the air, he wished he could pull them back, delete them. It was too late.
“No offense, Marcus,” said Rudy, “but that’s offensive. No need for you to be alone like that. You did it to yourself. You hurt a lot of people.”
Marcus looked at his boots. They were caked with dust and grime. His pants were gathered at the cuffs, wrinkled and coated in a layer of the same dirt on his boots. “You mean I hurt Lou,” he said. “It couldn’t be that I hurt y’all. You’re the ones who wanted me to leave. You’re the ones who, rightfully so, suggested all of the bloodshed in Baird, or anywhere I go, is my fault. I bring it with me like I’m carrying a plague.”
Rudy coughed again and licked the spit from his lower lip. Norma put a hand on his chest and urged him to rest. He shook his head. “We didn’t ask you to excommunicate yourself, Marcus,” he said. “You did that on your own.”
“Let’s put this behind us,” Norma said. “Or at least bury it for now.”
Marcus tensed at her choice of words. Images of roughly carved tombstones, of crudely wrapped bodies wearily dragged into shallow graves, flipped in his mind. It was a macabre slideshow reminding him of his failures, of the others in his life whom he’d irreparably hurt.
His bones ached. The muscles in his neck stiffened, and sparks of pain shot from the base of his skull to his shoulders. “I’m good with that,” he said. “We can revisit my failings once everybody is where they need to be.”
Agreement was exchanged with subtle nods and juts of chins.
Marcus shifted his weight and the floor creaked. “How are we to manage this?”
“How so?” asked Norma.
“The two of you,” said Marcus. “We’ve got a truck that could hold all of us. We could put a mattress in the bed for Rudy and—”
Norma shook her head and laughed. It was the kind of laugh that was born not of humor but of disbelief. “That’s not happening,” she said, the condescending chuckle clinging to her declaration. “He’s not going anywhere, so I’m not going anywhere. The two of you are on your own. I’ll point you in the right direction, give you the contact information.”
“Wait, what?” Dallas said. “You can’t stay here. The Pop Guard will be back. You’ll be defenseless.”
Norma’s expression was somewhere between resignation and defiance. Marcus couldn’t figure out which was more represented as she pulled back her shoulders and lifted her chin.
“I’m not leaving my husband,” she said. “That’s final. And as for being defenseless? I think that’s not giving me enough credit, Dallas.”
Marcus thought of the woman who’d stood in the middle of Baird’s main street, a hostile force descending on the town. She’d been brave. She’d readied herself for a fight. That was when Marcus decided the look on her face, the shift in her posture, was defiance. There was nothing resigned about Norma Gallardo.
“Rudy will heal,” she said. “He’ll get better a lot faster here in bed than he will on the road in the back of a pickup truck. And he’ll be here to help me should we need it.”
Rudy reached up and put his hand on his wife’s shoulder. He winced as he did it, but his touch softened her. She took his hand from her arm, holding it in both of hers.
“Can I at least set you up?” Marcus asked. “Ready some defenses for you before we head out in the morning?”
Norma smiled. It was a straight line smile, but it was kind. Her sharp edges dulled a bit; she nodded and thanked him. “Of course,” she said. “You can do whatever you want, old man.”
CHAPTER 23
APRIL 20, 2054, 2:00 PM
SCOURGE +21 YEARS, 7 MONTHS
GUN BARREL CITY, TEXAS
Lou sat outside the Moorhead Epps Funeral Home on the eastern edge of Gun Barrel City. She looked south toward what was left of a reservoir that stretched around the city in a way that made it a peninsula in the middle of the oblong body of water.
There was a portico that covered the front entrance to the long ago abandoned brick building, which gave enough shade to make the wait palatable. Lou leaned against the brick, her hands cupping the underside of her belly. David was squatting in the large parking lot, drawing pictures on the asphalt with a large rock he’d found.
Five horses were tied to a leaning telephone pole set in the middle of a weedy dirt plot that separated the property from its frontage on East Main Street. Main Street was also Texas Highway 334, a little-used road that kept Lou from encountering any additional threats.
Norma had suggested the route, which she’d learned of from a friend who worked at the railroad. It was warm, the air thick with dust and grime. Lou could taste it on her tongue.
Watching David be a child for a few stolen moments, she was thankful that she hadn’t had any more cramping since the barn and the deadly encounter with the traveling Pop Guard. She was not thankful that she’d been sitting at the funeral home awaiting her contact for three hours.
Lou arched her sore back and picked up the canteen next to her on the concrete. She shook it, and the remains swished around inside, telling her it was virtually empty.
Rolling onto her side, she managed to get to her feet using the wall. The brick was rough on her fingers and rubbed against the raw flesh worn from holding reins for the last two days. The insides of her thighs and her tailbone ached. She sighed.
“Hey,” she said to David. “Let’s walk down to the water and fill our bottles.”
David looked up from his dra
wings and nodded. Then he returned to his handiwork and scraped out a couple of additional flourishes before he dropped the rock and stood. He slapped the dust from his hands and then rubbed his palms on his shirt.
Lou made her way to the parking lot and sidestepped her son’s artwork. She stood there for a moment, taking his hand. “It’s beautiful,” she said, her eyes sweeping across the white collection of scratches on the fading, cracked asphalt.
It was pitted and crumbling in spots. David managed to find a wide, unscathed area that provided a suitable canvas.
“You like it?” he asked. “I drew it for you.”
The drawing was a line of stick figures. Some of them were tall with hats. Others were smaller or wore triangular dresses to indicate they were women or girls.
“Who’s who?” she asked.
David pointed at the smallest figure on the right. “That’s the baby. I don’t know whether it’s a boy or a girl, so I made it neither. It’s just a baby.”
Lou let go of his hand and put hers on the top of his head, tousling his hair. She smiled. “Your idea was perfect.”
“That’s me,” he said, pointing to the left. “I put a hat on my head even though I don’t have one. I like hats though, so I drew it.”
The hat was a square with a line that separated it from David’s imperfectly oval head. He wore a smile on his face, curving up beneath the single dot nose and twin circle eyes.
“Next to me is Norma,” he said. “She takes care of me when you can’t, like a grandma. That’s why I put her there.”
The triangle dress Norma wore was decorated with dots. She wore boots. Her hair was long.
“She looks lovely,” said Lou. “Is that Rudy next to her?”
David nodded, waving his hand across the drawing like a magician. As if the movement gave his creation life, he wiggled his fingers. “He’s not hurt here. This is before he was hurt. That’s why he’s standing up. Do you think he can stand now?”
David glanced up at her as her fingers ran through his hair, her nails scraping gently against his scalp. He squinted against the sun, blinking rapidly.
